Our message is simple: we believe humanity, not the Pentagon, should be our budget priority.

With spending cuts looming, we need to defend what Martin Luther King Jr. called our “programs of social uplift.” These programs, which provide services like food and housing assistance to those in need, reflect most on our national character.

At the same time, our ability to provide these opportunities for struggling Americans is weakened by overspending on what Gen. Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex" - wasteful military contracts for unnecessary weapons programs.

Take the example of Lockheed Martin's taxpayer-funded F-35 program. For the cost of one F-35 fighter jet, we can feed 2.2 million hungry people through USDA food assistance. Or, for this same lifetime cost of just one F-35, we can provide public housing and shelter to over 652,000 Americans experiencing homelessness for an entire year!

This is the true cost of "every warship launched": not the 1.5 trillion dollar price tag of the F-35 program, but the diversion of these precious resources away from millions of Americans who remain in need.